Netizens in China Reach 0.21 Billion and the Internet Spreads to Various Levels
On January 17, 2008, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released “The 21st Statistical Survey Report on the Internet Development in China” in Beijing. According to the data, the total number of netizens in China had reached 0.21 billion at the end of December 31, 2007. It’s the second only to the USA with a gap of 5 million users. CNNIC estimated that China will become the largest country with scale of netizens in initial of 2008. Even the growth of netizens has raised the Internet popularity to 16%; it is still lower than the global average level, 19.1%.
The total number of domain names in China has achieved to 11.93 million, with the annual increasing rate as 190.4%. The dynamic growth come CN which is the top level domain names of country code. It has reached 9 million, which is 4 times increased of the same period in 2006. The number of websites under CN domain names has surpassed one million in the first time with the number of 1.006 million that occupies 2/3 of the total 1.5 million of website.
Downward Tendency of Compatibility for Internet
It was the first time to analyze the composition of netizens whom newly added with detailed in the CNNIC report. Obviously, the tendency spread to all levels in 2007: The netizens who is under 18 and over 30 has been grown rapidly; The netizens whose educational level is below junior middle school has been rapid grown; low-income user have more opportunity contacted with the Internet frequently.
Furthermore, according to CNNIC data, rapidly growing rural netizens have become an important part of the newly added netizens. 40% of the 73 million newly added netizens, which have been about 29.17 million which is the 40% out of the 73 million newly added netizens are come from the countryside. By the end of December 2007, the number of the Chinese rural netizens achieved 52.62 million, with the annual growth rate reaching 127.7%. The data indicate that the rapid growth of rural netizens create a great opportunity for countryside Internet consumption market. With the advancement of township informationization popularization projects such as “village telephone communication”, “Internet access for every township” and “every township has a website”, the rural Internet market will surely have plenty of room for development.
The Development Momentum of Basic Network Resources Remains Strong
With the growth of the number of netizens, the development momentum of the basic Internet resources does not lag behind. The annual growth rate of IP addresses and domain names, which are the foundation of the basic address resources, has reached respectively 38% and 190.4%, which guarantees that the development demands of the Internet are met. By the end of December 2007, the number of IP addresses in China had reached 0.135 billion. However, compared with the basic demand of one IP address for each netizen, it still has disparity. The number of country CN domain names rapidly rose in 2007, with the growth rate reaching 4 times, that is, every day 20 thousand were added, creating a miracle of growth in the history of world domain names. Both CN domain names and websites under CN domain names have surpassed domestic COM domain names to a great extent, thus consolidating the mainstream status of the country domain names. For this reason, the number of websites, the number of webpages and the byte number of webpages grew at a speed over 60%. And the netizens will apply rich information resources more.
Digital Entertainment Become a Vital Application of Chinese Netizens
The highlight of this report is the interpretation for the multiple application modes of the Internet. According to the CNNIC survey, the Internet application preferred by Chinese netizens has been changed. Entertainment has become the most important network application of the Internet in China. The first seven network applications which used frequently in orders are: online music (86.6%)>instant messenging (81.4%)>online film and TV (76.9)>online news (73.6%)>search engines (72.4%)>network games (59.3%)>emails (56.5%). Online music and film and TV reflecting the entertainment role of the Internet obviously rank on the top. 94.2% of the netizens have given positive comment on the entertainment functions of the Internet. Data shows that the number of netizens who access online music has reached as high as 0.181 billion, and the number of netizens using instant messenging is 0.17 billion. Approximately 40% of the netizens chose instant messenging as the first function application online, followed by such basic Internet applications as online news and emails. Before 2007, “email” have been used as the most frequently application among the Internet users in China. The Internet entertainment function has become one of the driving factors for the rapid growth of netizens.
CNNIC Explore Three Advantages and Deepen Its Research
Currently the scale of the Internet industry is rapidly expanding. China has become a mainstream market in the world. Various niche domain services and applications are emerging within a short time. Many development channels crisscrossed, and more distinctions appeared within netizens. More extensive, deeper research and analysis shall be conducted on the Chinese Internet, and provide an opportunity to lead to know the present situation of Internet development. CNNIC will transform the “statistical report system”, number record orientation to the “research report system”, broader scope and greater depth. CNNIC will base on the advantage of data and scientific experience which have been accumulated over 10 years, to explore the potentiality of the following two advantages: firstly, the advantage as the infrastructure and industry service organization for the Internet in China; secondly, its advantage in cooperative research and communication with the international Internet organization. The new research report system will continue the objective and equitable style of the statistical reports on the Internet in the past ten years and provide reference for the government, enterprises and netizens with more authoritative data, more scientific research methods, more in-depth research analysis and more far-sighted strategy suggestions.
